Good morning everyone. I recently purchased a used Kawai RX3 from a dealer. According to the serial number, the instrument is 15/16 years old.
Based on your teachings on the subject, I checked both the downweight and upweight for this instrument.
I calculated approximately 80/85 g for the downweight and 40 g for the upweight. I reported these data to the seller, who told me that Kawai pianos normally have a heavier keyboard. Do you think this is possible? In view of my request, he promised me that he would have a technician come in to check the weights (lead weights). What do you all think? Thank you
80/40 seems a bit excessive to me. It's true the Kawai has a slightly heavier keyboard, but this seems exaggerated at the very least! It seems to me that mine didn't even reach 70 in the bass notes.
To perform these tests, I went to my tire specialist and had him give me weights for alloy rims of 5g each. Since they have the shape of a small parallelepiped, they can be glued together. Not satisfied, he purchased a small precision scale to be sure of the result. After various tests, the result obtained is about 80, only on the highs 5g less. I was asking you if I should insist with the technician to get parameters closer to the fateful 50g.
It is not appropriate to let the keyboard drop heavily. This could all depend on a friction coefficient of the mechanical pins that is too high. This can happen if the instrument has absorbed excessive moisture, i.e., it has been in particularly humid places for a long period of time. In that case, one must check the jack levers, those of the hammers, and the escapement studs. The correct friction should cause the levers to fall slowly and uniformly under the weight of their own screw.
The normal regulation of a Kawai like yours is done at the factory, around 60 grams for the key descent.
There is no reason to modify it unless you have to satisfy a customer's requests. Besides everything else, I would check that a weight has not been removed or the hammer rail replaced. It is true that your measurement detects anomalous weights, but it is also true that the great discomfort in these cases is felt due to excessive total friction.
